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As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as popular for the affluent and royalty, but after that time the trend did not last.

The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other societies, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some ordered fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it was then named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been initiated at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal patronage made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continued setting of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bets were held, and the society life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English held dominance. Sailing was mostly for fun and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was originally greatly put upon by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with merely a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had done earlier for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats had to be individually built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting belonged primarily for the royal and the affluent, expense was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller yachts happened in the second half of the 19th century from the sailing of the Englishmen R.T. McMullen, a stockbroker, and E.F. Knight, a barrister and journalist. A journey around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of small craft. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to replace sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure yachts. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance sailing turned into a favourite activity of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of bigger steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of over 150. The Mayflower, bought by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and was used in active service in World War II.

As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many bigger craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. During the decade that followed, big power-yacht creation grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of large power yachts fell away in 1932, and the trend thereafter was in preference of smaller, less costly yachts. Following World War II, lots of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a globally popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and upkeeping their own small pleasure boats. The number of craft and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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